Unknown Windows 7 media/aero issue

[VoidRoamer]

Hello. I'm having a problem that I haven't been able to sort out for a week now so am asking for advice on the issue.

I have an odd problem where after one or two reboots of my computer Windows Aero will permanently disable and windows media will stop playing videos properly, either giving extremely choppy playback or not playing them at all. Interestingly Third party media players work without issue.

To alleviate the problem I uninstall and reinstall the AMD display driver however this only gives me one or two boot cycles before the problem recurrs.

Any advice is welcome.

Thanks.

 

[VoidRoamer]

I neglected to mention that this problem coincides with the installation of a new motherboard. Both used the Catalyst system drivers. I have attempted using earlier versions with no success.

 

[mikeymikec]

If you disable hardware acceleration in WMP's options, does it help?

How about if you use VLC (www.videolan.org)?

I would personally bet that there's something left over from the AMD driver as recent-ish versions have included features along the lines of video decoding/transcribing (not sure if that's the right word) acceleration.

 

[VoidRoamer]

As mentioned, video works fine with third party players such as VLC and MPlayer. Unfortunately disabling acceleration in Media Player did nothing.

*Edit*

I've also removed all video and media acceleration options from the Catalyst install manager. Once again on the first restart things went fine but on the second reverted back to its troublesome state.

 

[VoidRoamer]

I seem to have narrowed down the issue further. When Windows starts up from a system reboot, the Aero/multimedia issue is fine. When Windows starts up from cold boot. The problem recurs. I have tested this several times. I have no idea why this happens or how to proceed though.

 

[mikeymikec]

My apologies, I hate it when people don't read the question

How about if you uninstall the driver completely, does Windows do a Windows Update job and install an AMD driver itself? Does it work any better then?

Admittedly I'm grasping at straws here. My bet is that it's driver related and that there's something somehow left over from the previous configuration, perhaps a changed registry entry that's beneficial to the old hardware but obviously not to the new.

 

[VoidRoamer]

My apologies, I hate it when people don't read the question

NP

I completely uninstalled the entire Catalyst package but no difference unfortunately. What on earth could be different between starting Windows from a clean reboot as opposed to a clean shutdown?

 

[mikeymikec]

I completely uninstalled the entire Catalyst package but no difference unfortunately. What on earth could be different between starting Windows from a clean reboot as opposed to a clean shutdown?

Yeah, that had me wondering as well.

Question: Windows 8x? It handles a Windows shutdown in a less thorough way (wrt clean slate) than a reboot.

Assuming it isn't Windows 8, then two possibilities spring to mind:

1) shutdown/reboot in terms of software states has nothing to do with it, it's a hardware issue which shows up during a cold boot but not a reboot - question here, does the problem occur if you shut down the computer then within a minute switch it back on and attempt to reproduce the issue?

2) related to point 1 - there's a hardware issue (with the old hardware) with a driver workaround which is harmful to the new configuration, some sort of option that can be set on the graphics card which can survive a reboot? I'm really reaching with this possibility, as I don't have a technical basis for such an idea.

 

[corkyg]

Does not the OP state it is Windows 7? Windows 8 does not do Aero unless a 3rd party mod is added.

Since the problem started with a new mobo, make sure that the onboard VC&G are disabled.

 

[VoidRoamer]

The motherboard does not have any onboard video adapter. As an experiment I shut the computer down then switched it back on. Here I would expect Windows to start with the Aero/video problem in effect. Instead, I rebooted at the bootloader (GRUB) before any components of Windows were loaded then allowed Windows to start as normal. The exact same effect - Aero and video worked. The issue appears purely hardware based.

I guess there is some hardware issue between my motherboard and graphics card. Odd because they are both AMD based and use Catalyst drivers.

I am completely befuddled.

 

[inachu]

Try uninstalling the ATI video drivers. Then download that video drive scrubber app that cleans your system out of any and all drivers relating to ATI or invidia.

Now! When you reinstall your ATI drivers then just install the video driver only.
Do not install all the bells and whistles that come along on the CD. Also make sure you are installing the video driver that came with the video card and not off of the internet.

Sometimes some 3rd party hardware dev who resell modded ATI video cards should only be using their drivers and not directly from ATI because ATI OEM VS 3rd party ATI OEM are not the same thing at all.

Same reason why I do not buy Nvidia motherboards. They should stick to video cards only.

 

[VoidRoamer]

Try uninstalling the ATI video drivers. Then download that video drive scrubber app that cleans your system out of any and all drivers relating to ATI or invidia.

Now! When you reinstall your ATI drivers then just install the video driver only.
Do not install all the bells and whistles that come along on the CD. Also make sure you are installing the video driver that came with the video card and not off of the internet.

Sometimes some 3rd party hardware dev who resell modded ATI video cards should only be using their drivers and not directly from ATI because ATI OEM VS 3rd party ATI OEM are not the same thing at all.

Same reason why I do not buy Nvidia motherboards. They should stick to video cards only.

I uninstalled Catalyst, scrubbed the drivers and restored Windows default drivers. I tried it while in that state and the issue still happened. Installed original driver DVDs, same issue. (In fact, the video card booklet simply tole me to get drivers from AMD). I'm fairly sure it's a hardware issue. When I can, I'll grab another video card and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the assistance.

 

[inachu]

I uninstalled Catalyst, scrubbed the drivers and restored Windows default drivers. I tried it while in that state and the issue still happened. Installed original driver DVDs, same issue. (In fact, the video card booklet simply tole me to get drivers from AMD). I'm fairly sure it's a hardware issue. When I can, I'll grab another video card and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the assistance.

Thanks for the update. Interesting to note they now say to grab from AMD.

 

[Ketchup]

I want to say that I have seen the Windows Experience Index cause problems when it still has a "pre-driver" score. Refresh your score and see if anything changes.

 

[Burpo]

I want to say that I have seen the Windows Experience Index cause problems when it still has a "pre-driver" score. Refresh your score and see if anything changes.

This could be the problem, but I'd also install the chipset drivers that came with the motherboard, then refresh score..

 

[VoidRoamer]

This could be the problem, but I'd also install the chipset drivers that came with the motherboard, then refresh score..

The chipset drivers I have installed are off the manufacturer's CD and the WEI is current.

 

[Ketchup]

The chipset drivers I have installed are off the manufacturer's CD and the WEI is current.

OK, cool. Are you seeing what you would consider a reasonable 3D score?

What flavor of 7 (basic, ultimate, 32-bit, etc)? Are there any unidentified items in device manager?

 

[VoidRoamer]

Ah Hah! When going to bed last night I had a thought. It wasn't relevant so I thought a bit more before coming to that idea that it might be a UEFI issue. I updated the UEFI firmware for the motherboard and all is good!

The motherboard was an ASRock 930 Pro3 R2.0 FYI

 

[Ketchup]

Very good! Thanks for the update.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ah Hah! When going to bed last night I had a thought. It wasn't relevant so I thought a bit more before coming to that idea that it might be a UEFI issue. I updated the UEFI firmware for the motherboard and all is good!

The motherboard was an ASRock 930 Pro3 R2.0 FYI

What made you think it was a UEFI issue?

 

[VoidRoamer]

What made you think it was a UEFI issue?

More gut feeling. Given that the problems state was determinable before any component of the OS loaded I assumed it had to be hardware/firmware. The only other change in my system was the fact that now instead of starting up off BIOS, my motherboard was starting from UEFI firmware. The box of my video card advertised that the card was UEFI ready so I thought there might be something worth looking into there.

Maybe just plain dumb luck.